Lithuania will tonight shut down its single Soviet-era nuclear power plant - a facility which supplies up to 80 per cent of the country's electricity but must go as a condition of the country's membership of the European Union.

When it comes to sex, New Labour claims that the last decade has been about the rights of sexual minorities and support for victims. In the last few years, however, that view has been challenged by a gathering dissent that includes many supposed beneficiaries of such liberalism.

Michigan's Lake Superior State University has issued its 2010 manifest of 15 words and phrases consigned to the lexicographical dustbin in the 35th "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness".

Boffins in Philadelphia, America have come up with a radical new plan for biofuels. Rather than the cars of tomorrow running on various forms of alcohol, sunflower oil, algae etc, the scientists propose that they should instead be fuelled by burning tobacco.

Dell customers are furious at the computer maker after it failed to deliver products in time for the holiday season, and instead offered a "Holiday Card" to place under their Christmas trees to replace undelivered gifts.

At least two bloggers who posted the latest Transportation Security Administration security guidelines have received visits from the feds. One had his laptop confiscated and was served a subpoena. The other just received the subpoena.

The US Federal Communications Commission has stepped in to bring a temporary halt to a dispute that had threatened to disrupt that most cherished of American institutions: watching young men attempt to bash each other senseless over the possession of an inflated ersatz pig bladder.